Championships lost to penalties

[Jeff Ream]

Sky in 72 for DCA?

[Sam98]

Splitting hairs here, but I thought the dropped rifle in Regiment was in 1978 (at the end of "Hall of the Mountain King")?

Edited September 30, 2010 by Sam98

[audiodb]

If I remember correctly, the penalities for many of the senior corps at the 1957 American Legion Nationals revolved around UNDERAGE members.

This is just from memory of secondhand reports, but I thought the penalties had to do with percentage of card-carrying Legion members in the ranks. A certain percentage of non-Legionnaires would cost the corps a 2.0 penalty, while some greater percentage resulted in disqualification (i.e. Reilly, Archie and Harvey Seeds).

[Northern Thunder]

This is just from memory of secondhand reports, but I thought the penalties had to do with percentage of card-carrying Legion members in the ranks. A certain percentage of non-Legionnaires would cost the corps a 2.0 penalty, while some greater percentage resulted in disqualification (i.e. Reilly, Archie and Harvey Seeds).

Of the 28 corps that received penalties in '57, 16 had 2.0 or more in penalties (one corps had more that 7 points-worth), while the other 12 had penalties of less than 2.0.

[byline]

That penalty WAS for dropped equipment (rifle), but in those days that was ruled a penalty.

There was lots of discussion about how unfair it was for color guards to be "singled-out" for their failure to maintain control over their equipment, and be assessed a penalty, while a musician missing a note was not a penalty.

I agree. That's why, IMO, there's no such thing as "losing by a penalty." With one or two fewer ticks in any of the captions, the penalty would be irrelevant. And, specifically with regard to '78, if Santa Clara had scored a perfect 100, and Phantom had scored a 99.9, with the only deduction being that .1 penalty, then yes, the claim could be made that the rifle drop made the difference. But of course that was not the only deduction, for either corps, and so I still fume whenever I see a misguided reference made to Phantom's "rifle-drop loss" from '78.

I have always thought that rifle lines were unfairly targeted for drops. Because let's face it: Back in the day, they were the only section (other than sabers, which were used less frequently) that was required to release its equipment . . . and they did it routinely, as expected, many, many times throughout their show. And frankly, if you have a rifle line that isn't tossing, what's the point? (See Garfield 1987.) So of course there was always the chance that someone in the line would drop sometime, somewhere. Thanks to the laws of physics, the odds are just too great.

And once the flag lines started tossing? To paraphrase Rondo: Whoa, Nellie, watch out! Flags are especially tricky because, unlike a rifle, they are not a blunt object with a natural rotation when tossed. Even when the flagpoles are weighted, the "sail" effect created by the flag creates wind resistance, which can be tricky to deal with even in the best weather conditions. Throw a little wind in there, and things get really interesting. You can teach your guard to throw a tighter rotation against the wind, but even that doesn't always work due to the unpredictability of wind. Not to mention the fact that it took a while before weighting flagpoles even became a common practice. (I'm thinking it was the mid-'80s or thereabouts.) Try tossing an unweighted flagpole sometime, and see how consistent your timing and catches are. I can answer that (because I worked for a band director who, in the beginning, said no when I begged him to let me weight my guard's flagpoles): Not very.

Yes, you can have a drop-less show; teaching and rehearsing good technique go a long way toward minimizing the chance of drops. But there's always the chance for Mother Nature to intervene -- a gust of wind here, a drop of rain there, or maybe part of your uniform catches or tangles up your equipment, or maybe something completely unexpected distracts you, interrupting your concentration for a split-second, or maybe the performer had a stomach bug and, and all that technique and strength built up over the summer go . . . well, you know -- and boom! The flag or rifle slips from that person's hands and lands on the ground, and they're staring at it wondering what the heck just happened because they'd never dropped before.

There are countless variables that can affect even the best-trained and -rehearsed rifle or flag line, and it just seems to me that drops were inevitable. So why single them out as being akin to the third sign of the coming Apocalypse? I think it's a lot like falls in figure skating. They're the thing that, even if you know nothing else about color guard (or figure skating), you know that was a mistake. And for the performer? Well, frankly, it's embarrassing, because unless that dropped rifle or flag miraculously bounces back up into your hands (which actually does happen), you have to bend over to pick it up, thus taking you completely out of your show until you can get back in. So I think drops tend to get overinflated in importance in people's minds.

One reason guards were singled out was because back then, the color guard did not receive its own score (well, except for the measly two points we were awarded starting in '78; can't remember how long that lasted before it was dropped altogether, and I'm too lazy to look it up). So, in terms of points, the guard actually stood to do more harm than good because of all the ticks that could accumulate. The guard was not able to contribute points to a score (except in some sort of nebulous way in the GE caption), but could only lose points, so the guard was blamed for something that was more the fault of an inadequate judging system than anything that we could control.

[byline]

*waggles hand* That's what I'm talking about...I'd rather read about something mroe significant than a 1/10th tick....like an overtime penalty (81 Cavies at Whitewater, for example) or a field boundary violation....a REAL penalty, not a tick that's called a penalty.

Otherwise you could argue that a corps that won simply got less overall penalties than the corps they beat.

I'm guessing this idea of penalizing dropped color guard equipment traces its roots back to the military origins of color guard: guarding the national colors. If you dropped a rifle or saber, then you were not doing your job to guard your national flag, hence you were assessed a penalty. Of course, even in DCI's infancy, the color guard section that marched with the corps proper had long since stopped performing that function, so I agree with you that it was silly to continue treating that as a penalty that was somehow "different" from any other error.

That's my theory, anyway. I haven't done any research to back it up. And I'm not sure how that theory applies to a dropped drumstick, mouthpiece, plume or whatever else might fall off in the course of a corps' performance, and so also was considered "dropped equipment" and penalized. Any dropped equipment -- whether it be guard equipment or something else -- was given a tenth penalty.

Edited September 30, 2010 by byline

[elphaba01]

Garfield missed being in the 1972 DCI finals because of penalties. They missed 12th place by 0.4, and they got 1.8 in penalties, while the 12th place Bleu Raeders had none.

Crossmen missed being in 1979 DCI finals due to penalties. They would have tied the Troopers for 12th, but they got 0.4 in penalties, while the Troopers got 0.2. Crossmen missed tying Troopers by those extra 0.2.

"Penalties That Cost Championships":

1964: Worlds Fair show. BOTH St Kevins Emerald Knights and the VFW National Champion Racine Kilties had penalties, without which either of them would have won the title.

The Chicago Royal Airs won the show, followed by St Kevins, Chicago Cavaliers and the Kilties.

Elphaba

WWW

[BAC oboist]

Drum Corps East Champions 1991 = Crossmen. Garfield lost due to a penalty - over stepping sideline, I believe.

[burdettsky]

I can recall DCI Finals 1994, SCV beat Madison for 5th place by 0.1, and Madison received a 0.1 penalty that would've put them in a tie for fifth.

Also, Troopers received what I believe was a "Late to the gate" penalty at Quarterfinals 2000 that cost them a spot in Semifinals.

2001 Quarterfinals featured a few penalties for Carolina Crown and Scouts (both late to line I think).

[84BDsop]

I'm guessing this idea of penalizing dropped color guard equipment traces its roots back to the military origins of color guard: guarding the national colors. If you dropped a rifle or saber, then you were not doing your job to guard your national flag, hence you were assessed a penalty. Of course, even in DCI's infancy, the color guard section that marched with the corps proper had long since stopped performing that function, so I agree with you that it was silly to continue treating that as a penalty that was somehow "different" from any other error.

That's my theory, anyway. I haven't done any research to back it up. And I'm not sure how that theory applies to a dropped drumstick, mouthpiece, plume or whatever else might fall off in the course of a corps' performance, and so also was considered "dropped equipment" and penalized. Any dropped equipment -- whether it be guard equipment or something else -- was given a tenth penalty.

I suspect you're correct re why the penalty for a drop was assessed....the reasoning seems sound.